Wednesday, November 5, 2014

[Review] Ouija

Ouija is the epitome of the disposable lower-tier horror flick, except even when you burn them, these things just keep coming back.

Debbie (Shelley Hennig) experiments with a Oujia board that she and her best friend, Laine (Olivia Cooke) have some sort of history with. Debbie abruptly commits suicide and Laine decides to find out once and for all what's up with this thin piece of wood with letters and numbers on it. She gathers a group of friends to play with the Ouija board in order to communicate with her dead friend.

Things get weird, but here it's humdrum in the horror world. The film is packed with typical bangs and false alarms, and the jump scares don't even do their job. The overbearing music is so constantly cued that it ends up rendering no effect at all. The acting is Lifetime-y and the characters are so flat that you almost forget which one is which. It's like a bunch of Sims characters just sitting in a room and repeating bad dialogue--awfully expository dialogue, at that. There's one point where some dude walks through a nearly pitch black room and says "All the lights are out." No shit, Sherlock.

The uninspired story and stock visuals all move slowly without any major build, but things sure do get ridiculous and laughable fast. All the flaws and cornball levels are so high that it's difficult to buy into any of it, and you can't even just relinquish all of your doubts and immerse yourself.

Ouija is a modern horror film running through the motions. And it's more like Ouija Bored.